HONDO • The Craft family received a big surprise when they found out they had been selected to receive a new home designed by the team of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” last month.

    In just seven days, Todd and Elizabeth Craft and their children were presented with a new 3,400 square foot, six bedroom, four bathroom home on the corner lot where their 1,900 square foot small brick house had set.

    In case the millions of viewers who watched the show on April 9 missed it, this devout Catholic family presented a strong pro-life message as they told their story of heartbreak, loss and prayer — and the difference it has made in all of their lives. They believe that their new found blessings are nothing less than a gift from God for remaining true to their faith.

    Todd, or Coach Craft as he is commonly known, is an assistant football head coach as well as the head baseball and girl’s basketball coach at D’Hanis High School in D’Hanis. He also teaches Speech and Health. Liz is a stay at home mom. The couple have five children: Samantha, 11; 7-year-old Sarah; Isabella, 3, who was born with alobar holoprosencephaly, a severe malformation in which the brain fails to divide into two lobes; and Todd Joseph, 18 months.
    Another son, William, died three hours after his birth in December 2001 due to anencephaly, being born without a developed brain.
    Following a sonogram for Isabella, Liz sent the pictures to San Giovanni Rotundo in Italy. “I’m one of Padre Pio’s spiritual daughters,” said Liz. “I didn’t just sit there and say, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?’ I got busy.” The sonogram photos were touched to a glove belonging to the saint and are now considered a third class relic.

    Late in Liz’s pregnancy with Isabella, a buildup of spinal fluid in the infant’s skull prompted one doctor to propose that she undergo a cephalocentesis. The procedure involved inserting a large needle into Isabella’s skull and taking out much of the spinal fluid to facilitate a natural birth, collapsing the skull.

    The infant mortality rate for the procedure is 95 percent. Liz refused and instead underwent a cesarean section. “The doctors didn’t want to put me at risk with major surgery for a dead baby or a baby they thought was going to be a vegetable.”

    However, Liz believes this story, concerning her former doctor who is a friend, is one of conversion. “Every time she sees Isabella she cries. I think I changed her outlook on things,” said Liz of her former doctor.

    But following Isabella’s birth, Liz recounts, not bitterly but with a tinge of anger, stories of fighting doctors at every corner in a bid to obtain quality health care for her daughter. Physicians failed to order CAT scans and MRIs. The only neurosurgical test done for Isabella immediately after her birth was transillumination, in which a light is placed around the skull to estimate brain location. Liz calls the procedure “medieval.”

    Health care professionals even inserted an adult sized shunt into her lower skull to drain fluid without checking for proper placement. That error has since been corrected with a small shunt at the top of Isabella’s skull. However, the previous shunt now cannot be removed due to further damage that could result to her brain.

    At about this time, Liz states in her online journal that she was close to a nervous breakdown when she contacted her pastor, Father Wallis Stiles of Holy Cross Church in D’Hanis, for assistance in finding a pro-life, Catholic physician. He in turn called Father John Leies, SM, former president of St. Mary’s University and then-chaplain to the Catholic Physicians Guild. Father Leies is also an internationally known theologian who frequently speaks on medical ethics.

    The Marianist priest recommended Dr. Patricia Mancuso, the leading pediatric neurosurgeon in San Antonio, who practices at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital downtown. She remains Isabella’s doctor to this day.

    “I could tell immediately that she cared about Isabella, that she was going to give her every chance she could,” Liz said. “She’s been wonderful. She’s the best. I love her so much.”

    Isabella also makes annual trips to Dallas to visit the Carter Center at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, one of the nation’s leading pediatric centers for the treatment of neurological disorders. Liz specifically recalls an episode that happened there.

    “I also have a big connection with the St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, because Isabella is a ‘little flower.’ I had a card made for Isabella with a picture of one flower and put a sticker of St. Thérèse on the back. When we went to the Carter Center one time when they saved her life, those flowers were everywhere in the hospital. And I had never seen one in my life — ever. There are little things like that that I love.” The critical incident happened after Isabella suffered a seizure due to diabetes insipidus, or water diabetes.

    “I’ve learned to give it up all completely to God,” said Liz. “People don’t get that. They pray, ‘Please God, do this for me.’ No. I’ve learned to change my prayers to, ‘Whatever your will is let it be done. Give me the strength.’ That’s what I pray for, strength and the wisdom to advocate for my children.”

    She added, “I learn not to dwell on it. Sometimes I thank God it was me and not some poor teenager or some woman that couldn’t advocate for her child. I’ve come across it in the doctors’ offices. Nobody in the office would help them. They don’t know to speak up and say, “No, I don’t think so.” I’m glad it was me because I could learn and find out and basically become an expert in holoprosencephaly to make the right decisions.”

    Liz said she always hopes for a future for her youngest daughter. “I hope that one day she’ll be able to walk. Right now she can’t even bear weight, so it’s going to take a really long time to get her to do that. God gave us hope, so we use it. Hope for as long as possible, but realistically take things day by day.”

    Isabella attends school each day from 1 to 3 p.m., a feat some of her former caretakers said would never happen. “Her first neurosurgeon said she would never go to school, that she was too severely handicapped,” said Liz. “Her teacher here thinks Isabella could be integrated into a regular classroom someday.”

    She also undergoes physical therapy and occupational therapy as well as therapy for visual impairment. Two of her teachers from Hondo even worked with show designers on the home’s new therapy room. While Isabella is classified as legally blind, her mom doesn’t believe that diagnosis for a minute. “With someone who cannot verbalize, you cannot measure their sight. “She sees fine,” says Liz, describing how her daughter is always immediately able to find her pacifier when she drops it.

    Isabella also communicates by saying a few words, but also by making clicking sounds with her tongue. “It’s amazing when you see the CEOs of big companies bending down to Isabella and making these clicking sounds,” Liz said.

    According to Father Stiles, his favorite parishioner “has a personality better than 99 percent of the people I know.”

    Liz does admits to “feeling a little funny” about being selected for “Extreme Home Makeover.”
    “I was feeling really weird about it, accepting all this stuff,” she said. However, she credits a couple of friends for helping her to look at the situation differently.

    One of those was her best friend, Lori McGuffin, an English teacher and cheerleader sponsor at D’Hanis High School, as well as an active parishioner at Holy Cross Church. She served as the production assistant for the video application submitted to the show, which featured a gym full of purple and gold clad athletes cheering for their coach. Her friend also helped compile the voluminous paperwork that was required by ABC in order to be selected for the show.
    “Look at the pro-life, Christian message you’re spreading,” she told Liz.
    Liz replied, “I had said all through my interviews how our faith kept us going. I can’t imagine if I had no faith. These things are very hard to go through. If I hadn’t given myself all to God I can’t imagine where I would be.”

    Her pastor, Father Stiles, was also cited for her change in attitude. “During Mass one Sunday he talked about Job, and how he had lost everything but God had given it all back because he made the right choices. I thought maybe I don’t have to be feeling bad that I’m going to be given something. Maybe I have made the right choices. To me the most important thing was getting the message across. My passion in life is pro-life now. Especially after William. I try to spread that message every time I can.”

See the May 12 issue of Today’s Catholic for part II of the Craft family’s story which includes William’s story and house blessing.